Our Method:

• Exhortation – Calling believers back to their First Love… (Rev. 2:1-5) Realizing that Satan is at work seeking to occupy our minds, lives, and hearts with items of secondary importance, our desire is to be used of the Holy Spirit to call believers back to their first love for God and to His priority of loving people into the Kingdom of His Son. (Matthew 22:36-40 & 23:11)
• Evangelization – Introducing the lost to the One  who loved them first…  (I John 4:19) Firmly believing that Jesus Christ is returning soon, our passion is to see people come to know Him as Savior and Lord.  Therefore, a bottom-line priority ministry of First Love is to be actively engaged in sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with those who are lost in the darkness of sin. Our evangelistic strategies and methods are patterned after those of the Apostle Paul who said: Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.  I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. (I Cor. 9:19 & 22)
• Education – Teaching them to obey all that Jesus has commanded us… (Matthew 28:19-20) Through the power of the Holy Spirit seeking to motivate, mentor, edify, and train disciples of Jesus Christ for the purpose of making them fruitful participants in Christ’s Great Commission as active members of the harvest force.

OUR MINISTRY

First Love’s bottom line in all of its ministries is to be active participants in the Great commission through the practical application of the Great command. In each facet of our ministry we seek to flesh out the words of the Apostle Paul as recorded in Galatians 5:6… “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love!” We do this through attempting to do the good work in order build a platform for having the privilege of sharing the good word!

Some of First Love’s ministries include:

• The feeding and care of the poor and destitute
• Homes for orphans and widows
• Free Medical clinics
• Micro-enterprise and livelihood projects
• Church planting
• Sports Evangelism
• MK (missionary kid) and theological education
• HIV/AIDS education and care
• Rescue ministries targeted towards children and women trapped in human trafficking syndicates
• Marriage enrichment retreats
• Counseling services
• Pulpit supply
• Mission and Pastors’ Conferences
• And much more…

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27)

Core Values:

• Holy Spirit empowerment – We recognize that prayer for power and anointing from the Holy Spirit is the foundation upon which all aspects of our ministry must be constructed. (Romans 8:26)
• Loving involvement – Faith expressing itself through love. (Gal. 5:6)  Our desire is to activate our love through a ministry of evangelization coupled with hands-on compassion.  Remembering the words of our Lord Jesus: Whenever you do it for the least of these, you did it for Me.  (Mt. 25:40)
• Strategic instruction – We seek to preach and teach sound Bible-based doctrine in an enthusiastic and practical way that will both edify and move people to action.  (Titus 2:1-8)

Statement of Faith:

1. We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.
2. We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
3. We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.
4. We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful man regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
5. We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.
6. We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.
7. We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Board of Directors: 

• Jerry Winslow – Chairman
• Robert Opperman –  Treasurer
• Beth Lowery – Secretary
• Mike Addis – Member
• Phoebe Wilhelm – Member
• Michael Lentini – Member
• Phil Smith – President/CEO